Lost & Found
by Thursday's Dove
Summary: Before Videl, Gohan was with another woman and unknowingly had a child by her. After they broke up, he refused to accept that this child was his. How will Gohan's decision affect his son and the other people in his life once the truth comes out? AU/OCs
1. Chapter 1

**[A/N:** This is an alternate story to the timeline of Aqua that I've been working on. I just had an idea one day: What if Aqua and Gohan hadn't met the same way and what if he rejected the fact that he had a son with her? This story is not about Aqua; it's about Karu, their son (in this universe, at least haha)! So yes, an alternate universe to an alternate universe... Sorry, Gohai, but looks like you take a back seat in this story, ol' buddy. ;) And don't worry, I promise that Gohan and a few other canon characters will come to play a larger role in future chapters. :)

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own DBZ. I do own Aqua, Karu, and this story, though! **]**

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She knocked on the door again, more forceful this time, when no one answered it the first time. The infant in her arms fussed a bit and wriggled around to show its discomfort. She sighed a bit and looked down at her little son. He looked so much like his father that every time she so much as glanced at him, she was reminded of the father, and that pain felt like a dagger through her heart.

Finally, someone answered the door. To her surprise and relief, it was Gohan.

"Aqua…" he stammered. He hadn't been expecting her, and what's more, she was sure that he hadn't wanted her over; the look on his face said as much. "What are _you_ doing here?" he finally asked.

She held her little son, who laid fast asleep in her arms, out to him.

He just stared at her, oblivious. "What's this? You want me to baby-sit? Very funny, but I'm busy right now," Gohan said.

"No, Gohan, he's your _son_. Take him!" she persisted and shoved the now-awake baby at him.

"Woah, woah. Hey, wait a second here." He pushed the child away. "_My_ son? I think you're delusional. Take the poor thing back to his _real_ parents before they worry themselves into a coma."

"I _gave birth_ to this baby, so I think I'd_ know_ if he were mine or not!" she shouted angrily.

"Gohan, who's that?" someone from inside the house called.

Gohan yelled back, "No one, Videl!" and then returned to the woman with the child. "Fine, he's yours, but he's not _mine_," he denied, yet a distant look in his eyes seemed to portray some sense of vague understanding.

"Gohan, he's yours. I _know_ that he is. He was born nine months after we… slept together," she choked at remembering how they'd joined one night, having been very much in love at the time, and then the next week he had left without warning. "And besides, he looks _just like _you. How can you deny it?"

She held the child up next to him, and sure enough, her child strongly resembled Gohan; the resemblance was _too_ uncanny for one to _not_ notice. The only difference seemed to be that the child's hair was a deep shade of blue instead of the ebony of Gohan's, and his eyes, which were of the same shade of midnight blue as his hair. Yet Gohan stubbornly denied once again by pushing the crying child back to her.

"Look, you can't screw around with other guys, get pregnant, and then come back to me and say that I'm the father of your child. It doesn't—"

Suddenly, she interrupted, her face hot with rage, heart heavy, and tears cascading down her face. "How _dare_ you suggest something like that?! There has been no other since you! You got me pregnant and then left and now it's time for you to pay your dues, Gohan! He's your fucking _son_ for God's sake! Have you no heart at all?!" She was an inch away from strangling him and castrating him, but she resisted. Gohan stood his ground.

"Gohan, who the hell is that?!" the girl from inside the house yelled again.

"I said that it's no one, god damn it!" he hollered back.

He glared at her hatefully, a glare that she'd never forget. The fires of hell reflected in his eyes. "Don't try to push your problems on me, Aqua. We're _through_. Get over it!"

And that was that. The door was violently slammed in her face, causing her son to cry even louder. She glanced down sorrowfully at her little son, feeling as though his tears reflected her own.

With that, she turned and ran away from there, the baby in her arms still wailing, and didn't stop until she could no longer breathe. Then, in the cover of the trees, she slumped to the leaf-covered ground and wept as if she had never wept before, wept for herself, and wept for her dear little son who would grow up fatherless.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey, Karu!"

At hearing his name, a tall, dark blue-haired boy glanced over to see his friends standing around a tree in front of their high school. It was their first day back to classes and already the three of them were up to their old devices: Standing around after school and smoking while discussing which girls' breasts had grown the most over the summer.

Karu simpered faintly over at his friends and made his way over, shifting the weight of his book bag as it sat on his back, laden with books and schoolwork.

"Give me one," he said, holding out his hand for a cigarette.

The short and silly Kanaye gawked at his friend's bluntness before grinning and producing the stick of nicotine along with a lighter. Karu nodded his thanks, took the items, cupped his hand around the end of the cigarette so that he could shield it from the wind as he lit it, and inhaled deeply, sighing as the soothing smoke filled his lungs. He exhaled and a cloud of gray billowed out from between his lips.

"You really need to quit stealing the goods from us, Karu. You owe us like, a million zenni worth of these," said Tomo as he lit up a cigarette of his own, having discarded the used first one. Tomo, like Kanaye, was a jokester—although he was better known for his stinging sense of sarcasm—but was also a lot more laid back, whereas Kanaye seemed to have a boundless amount of energy at his disposal. Then again, Kanaye also drank a lot more caffeine; the dark rings under his bright green eyes explained a lot about his sleeping habits, or lack thereof, as a result of this.

"Shut up," Karu retorted as he exhaled another cloud of smoke. "My mom won't let me have them in the house, and besides, I don't want my sister to find them."

"That's Karu Adaru for ya'," drawled Kanaye in a manner of teasing as the other two snickered, "Always playing the martyr."

With a faux look of offense, Karu reached over and shoved his friend roughly and then flipped him off. Kanaye stumbled backwards in surprise and dropped his lit cigarette to the ground, swearing loudly as it barely missed landing on his shoe. The quartet of friends all shared a laugh together in the warm afternoon sunlight.

"Last year here at Orange Star High, boys," Makoto said with a glance at the school building and a wistful sigh. Makoto was the most mature of the four and the most academically inclined, although Karu had a tendency to achieve better grades and more compliments from the teachers than he did. This sometimes bothered Makoto, but he also knew that his friend wasn't _trying_ to show him up—Karu had just always coasted through school and homework with natural ease.

"Yeah, thank the gods for that," scoffed Tomo with a dramatic roll of his eyes.

"Right?" Kanaye chimed in with a sunny grin. "I've been waiting for this day for like, three years." He paused and looked thoughtful while the others raised their eyebrows at him. "No, wait, more like…" He paused again and began counting on his fingers. The others could almost hear the gears working in his brain. "…Seventeen years."

"And _this_ isn't even the day you've been waiting for—it's the _last_ day of school you're waiting for, idiot," Tomo corrected and blew smoke in his friend's face.

Kanaye just laughed at waved it away. "Shh, stop making sense!" he said.

Karu smiled affectionately. He had missed his friends and their antics over the summer, as he had spent a great deal of it hiding in his room. His smiled faltered slightly as he remembered why he hadn't felt like socializing over the summer. He hadn't told his friends yet… or his sister… but he wasn't sure he wanted any of them to know anyway. It was an uncomfortable topic for him. Besides, nobody _really_ needed to know, as far as he was concerned—just he, his mother, and the one he had grown up with knowing as his father, Ivan.

Well, at least his friends had forgiven him easily enough for not keeping in contact with them over the summer and without _too_ many questions. They knew that something had changed about him over the summer—Karu could sense that they knew _that_ much—but they couldn't pinpoint what it was. Karu had been his typical self while answering their questions and had, naturally, given them vague and guarded answers.

"_Anyway_," Karu butted in as he finished off his cigarette with one last, satisfied draw, even though it was only half-way smoked, "I've got to go pick up Sayomi from her school." He flicked the butt to the ground and stamped on it, extinguishing the glowing orange tip of it with his heel. "I'll see you guys later, okay?"

"Right," they replied, and waved back at their friend as he walked away with his hands shoved into his pockets, his brown monkey-like tail undulating slowly back and forth after him.

Makoto frowned to himself as he watched his friend go, while Kanaye and Tomo resumed their heated discussion of who had the biggest tits in the school. He had never seen his friend look so dispirited before.

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**[A/N:** I promise the chapters will be longer eventually, and if I break that promise, then... I did it for a good reason! Dx I just wanted to introduce Karu and his friends and their relationships to one another in this chapter. And I just thought I'd say now that when you picture Karu, just picture how Gohan looked when he was in high school, because they look primarily the same, except for, you know... the retarded Saiyaman costume.

Also, to clear up any confusion:

-Sayomi is his younger, half-sister.

-Ivan is his adopted father. You'll learn more about him later.

-Aquamarine (Aqua) is his mother, and I'm going to keep the fact that she's Vegeta's sister the same. So in short, Karu is a three-quarter Saiya-jin while Sayomi is a half-blood.

-Annnnd I'm done explaining things. Everything else I plan on answering in context throughout the story. Any questions? Ask! :) **]**


	3. Chapter 3

After picking his younger sister Sayomi up from school, Karu took her and himself straight home. His mother and father were already there, sitting at the table and discussing things that adults discuss. The pair looked up and smiled when their children walked in the door.

Their smiles felt fake and overly warm to Karu. Ever since they had told him the truth, things had been different. He was no longer sure if those smiles of theirs were fake now or if they had been all along and he had never noticed it until now. The scales had truly been peeled from his eyes, and in a way he had never imagined that they would be and in a way he had never wanted them to be. What could possibly hurt more than knowing that your parents had been lying to you since you were pretty much born? He knew that they had meant well, especially his mother—she was only trying to protect him, after all—but still… he felt deceived.

And what about Sayomi? They had been lying to her, too. There was scarcely a person alive he loved and adored more than his little sister, and hurting her was simply unforgivable. She was only his half-sister, he now knew, but his feelings for her had not budged an inch. How would she react if she knew that their fathers were different? She was six years younger than he was, too young to understand.

"Sayomi, Karu," greeted their father—No, _Sayomi's_ father—Ivan, when they walked in.

"Hey, Daddy!" Sayomi chirped in return, shuffling over to him and kissing his cheek and then turning to kiss her mother's.

"How was your first day of sixth grade?" their mother asked with a smile. She glanced over at her son to see him slipping off in the direction of his room. "Just a second, honey," she interrupted her daughter when the eleven-year-old had opened her mouth to detail her first day of sixth grade. "Karu?"

The boy stopped when he heard his name and looked over at his mother blankly.

"I'm going to my room," he stated. Seeing that she wasn't going to let him go without an explanation, he continued, "I'm just going to lay down for a bit."

For a moment, his mother made no response, just looked at him kind of sadly. And then she nodded and turned back to her daughter, smiling that forced smile again. Karu chewed on the inside of his cheek as he observed this before continuing along to his room.

Once there, he shut the door behind himself and laid back on his bed with a long sigh. He stared at the ceiling, thinking.

He couldn't stop thinking about everything. It was like a splinter in his mind, slowly driving him mad. No matter how much he tried to think around it, his mind always seemed to find its way back to it.

The revelation was still clear in his mind's eye. Again, he played it back to himself.

_His parents called him into the living room. Sayomi was over a friend's house, so they didn't need to worry about her overhearing anything._

_Karu entered the room and sat down across from them, expecting them to either tell him something great or something horrible. Immediately his brain came up with two outcomes: Either his mother was pregnant again, or one of his grandparents had died. Then again, logic told him that if it was something good, both he and his sister would have been called in to share the news, and yet Sayomi was absent. Needless to say, Karu looked into their faces with a sense of dread sinking into his stomach._

_Something had to be wrong._

"_Son…" Ivan began, which Karu had later found scathingly ironic and rather deceptive of him. His father's hesitant tone registered in his brain and made him feel even more uneasy._

"_You're seventeen now, and you're old enough to understand certain things," his mother chimed in._

_Upon hearing that, Karu couldn't help but crack a smile. Of course. The sex talk. He should have known. Sure, it was weird of them to have waited until he was seventeen, because he had figured it out years ago and many of his peers had already lost their virginity, but this was it._

_He decided to spare his parents the embarrassment of trying to explain and butted in. "Mom, Dad, it's okay. It really is," he said with a growing smirk of amusement. "You don't have to explain." When they both looked surprised, Karu smirked even more and went on. "I'm seventeen, as you said. Do you really think I don't know about sex?"_

_Both parents looked even more surprised, but neither of them smiled. Surely his response had been laid-back enough to put them at ease, but as his mother continued to shift in discomfort, Karu quickly realized that it wasn't about sex after all._

_Something must be _really_ wrong._

"_Oh…" he muttered as he watched them. "Well, what's wrong?" he asked, his tone suddenly as serious as their expressions._

"_You need to know the truth, Karu. And before you hear the truth, just remember that your father and I both love you very much, okay?" his mother started over once she regained her composure. Karu didn't like that she seemed to be shaken up so badly._

"_Okay…" he said, trying to stay calm._

_His mother ran a hand through her wavy blue hair and pushed out a sigh before answering._

_"Ivan isn't your real father," she said simply, shakily._

_Karu just blinked at them in incomprehension, his expression completely blank._

_"What are you talking about?" he breathed._

_"Karu," his mother said, "Ivan isn't your real father. I... I never wanted to tell you because... I was afraid of how much it would hurt you. But you deserve to know the truth. You're a wonderful person and you deserve the best father, and—"_

_"What is this?" Karu growled, now irritated that his parents were playing this joke on him. "This isn't funny, Mom."_

_"Karu…" his mother whispered sadly._

_Karu looked back and forth between the two of them, disgusted and yet still disbelieving. His eyes fell on Ivan's face and their eyes met, Karu's eyes searching Ivan's for any sign that this might really be a joke. But he saw only complete sincerity in them._

_"Dad… what?" he muttered beneath his breath, which had increased as rapidly as his heartbeat. Ivan nodded in response, confirming what his wife had said about him not being Karu's real father. "So…" Karu stammered, struggling to keep his head, "What of my real father, then?"_

_After that, his mother had told him of how she and his blood father had once been in love; how she and him had grown to love each other so much that they made love and conceived him; and then how they had broken up—she didn't explain _why_ exactly, she just said that they had a huge fight and that was the end of their relationship—and how his father hadn't even known about him until after he was born, and how he hadn't accepted Karu as his son._

_A few years later, his mother had met his adoptive father, Ivan. They married, had Sayomi, and life continued on as normal, only they had hesitated with telling Karu the truth until he was old enough to understand._

Karu couldn't believe it no matter how many times he rolled the memory of that conversation around in his head. His father had abandoned him and his mother and had never tried to contact them in all these years, and his parents had been lying to him the whole time about it. His entire foundation suddenly felt like wet cement. The very origin of his birth had been a lie to him for seventeen years…

Beyond that line of thought, it was strange for him to imagine things about his father. What had he been like? Where was he now? Was he even still alive? Why had he and his mother fought? Why had he denied his fatherhood to him? Did he, Karu, look like his father at all?

Even more strange was imagining how his father could have had other children with another woman after him. What if he had siblings out there in the world? What if he met one of them and didn't even know it? Shit, what if one of them went to the same school as he did?

With these questions constantly swirling around in his mind, Karu closed his eyes and decided that whoever his father was, he hated him.


End file.
